Friday, April 8, 2011

Velocity Test

To find the velocity of a falling golf ball or ping pong ball, all you need is a ping pong ball, a golf ball, a meter stick, and a stop watch! My group’s hypothesis was “If we drop a ping pong ball and a golf ball from heights of 1, 2 and 3 meters, then the velocity of the golf ball will have a higher velocity the farther up we drop it from.” To go doing this test, you must first gather all your materials. Next, take your stopwatch and get ready to time how long it takes the golf ball to drop to the ground from a height of 1 meter. Then, drop the golf ball again from heights of 2 and 3 meters. Time those, as well. Then, test your ping pong ball. Time how long it takes for to drop to the ground from a height of 1 meter. Then time and drop it again from heights of 2 and 3 meters. (If you would like more accurate answers, test each ball from each height three times and find the average.) Once everything has been recorded, plug the information into the following formula to find the velocity: Distance = Velocity x Time. For each drop, plug in how high it dropped it from and how long it took for it to drop to the ground and solve. To find the force, solve the following equation: Force = Mass x Acceleration. A golf ball ways 45.66g and a ping pong ball weighs 2.5g. The acceleration of all things on earth with gravity is 9.8 m/s/s. Once all formulas have been found, the test is complete.

Here was my group’s results:
test1 meter drop2 meter drop3 meter drop
golf ball 1.30 s.89 s1.04 s
ping pong 1.44 s.75 s.95 s
golf ball 2.30 s.84 s1.06 s
ping pong 2.60 s.70 s.80 s
golf ball 3.43 s.49 s1.22 s
ping pong 3.40 s.80 s.90 s


test1 meter drop2 meter drop3 meter drop
golf ball velocity.96 m/s/s.90 m/s/s.90 m/s/s
ping pong velocity.69 m/s/s.88 m/s/s1.13 m/s/s


golf ball force447.468 N
ping pong force24.5 N



This bottom graph showed the results of when we drop the ping pong ball from a height of 3 meters measuring with a motion sensor. It didn’t work at all, since it said we only dropped it from a height 2.3 meters to begin with. This graph is basically a failed trial of what our class was hoping would work.

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